Watercolours
by feathers and ash
Summary: They began counting the war not in days but deaths. Ishihime.


**Written for 15pairings at LJ. Prompt: "Together."**

* * *

They began counting the war not in days but deaths. 

If you asked them how long it had been going on, they would fix you with a blank, unknowing stare; but if you asked how many had died, they would recite long and perfect lists in mechanical voices.

She cried at every name.

(_You barely even knew them, Inoue. You shouldn't exhaust yourself like this._

_And now I'll never have the chance to know them; isn't that a good enough reason to cry?_)

( _He was an enemy, Inoue. Don't cry._

_But he didn't hurt me, when I was there, and I never got to see him as anything different._)

He cared about nothing but making sure she did not join them.

Her face rounded and softened, almost wilting under the barrage, linear trails of tears accentuating the curves of her cheeks. Her movements slowed, no longer boisterous and all-encompassing; he was reminded of a flower folding in on itself before the dawn.

(Sunlight brought no joy now; warmth doing nothing but bouncing off red.)

His own face sharpened in contrast, lips pressing into a thin, terse line and eyes narrowed so fiercely that migraines became a constant background hum.

(_You're going to get wrinkles, Ishida-kun_, she murmured idly, _and then Ayasegawa-san will scold you_.)

He never had the heart to tell her that he was terrified to speak, terrified that one day her name would come crashing down among the litany of the dead. He never quite had the courage to confess his determination to prevent this.

He remembered sometimes that they were still very young.

* * *

Eventually they learned that they made a good team. She refused to be put aside, to be sheltered on the sidelines no matter how valuable her abilities. He refused to have her in the forefront of the battle, even if he never said this aloud. The logical conclusion then presented itself: She stayed at his side. With his long-reaching Quincy bow, he allowed them both the chance to fight without the risk of having her in the very epicenter of the action. 

She was useful, she was _there_, she was not cast aside.

Neither of them was alone.

And she was alive.

When the battle of the day was over, they would stagger off together (he would carry her if her exhaustion became too great, but slowly he learned how to be supported too) and form a very different sort of team. He would move before her, flying through the wounded, stabilising and bandaging and forcing them to live with nimble bloodstained hands.

He gave her the chance to get to them, to reject the atrocities of war, to escape that fallen expression that meant _I'm too late_.

Each person saved meant less tears shed, and he thought he could be exhausted forever in return for that. Limbs shuddering both in pain and desperate need of sleep meant nothing when she smiled.

She didn't smile enough, anymore. He found it odd that, out of everything, he missed that the most.

* * *

He asked her, once: _Are you sad that you're not up there with Kurosaki?_

She'd looked away for just a moment, then calmly met his eyes. _I don't want to be a burden._

And he was filled with a strange, fierce joy because she understood.

She was not a burden to him.

* * *

Each day was a personal victory, despite how many tears she shed. _She_ was still there to shed them, and he was still there to ensure that she made it to the next. 

He had never said, _I would have given my life to save you, and I will give it in a heartbeat still_, but now he would touch her when she sobbed, a hand through her hair or a fingertip beneath her eyes, and she calmed at the contact as though it were enough.

* * *

It wasn't. 

She was the one to instigate their first kiss, a momentary brush right before the heat of battle. She said it was for luck, and her face was flushed and more animated than he had seen in _months_, and he very nearly laughed.

_I don't need luck to bring me back to you, not now_.

She smiled, broad and sunny and so much like _herself_, and that night she cried into his chest. At first he thought her sobs were muffled into his clothes, but then he realised that she was simply crying less because she was with him.

She didn't leave his side, after that. Sleep was a rare thing, a luxury to be treasured, but when the opportunity arose his shoulder became her pillow, and she found that nightmares didn't reach her inside of his arms.

He'd stay awake for as long as he could push his own body, merely to stand guard and stroke her hair.

You never knew what the morning would bring, after all.

* * *

He didn't remember their second kiss at all. He had sworn he would stand between her and anything that would cause her harm, and something stronger than even Quincy pride made him do just that. 

The opponent was destroyed and he was not fairing much better, but she was untouched except for bloodstains not her own, and he thought this an even trade. He couldn't bring himself to have regrets, not when she was there and whole, and so he was content.

She was frantic. Her hands moved over his skin more furiously than her fairies, and her desperate _I reject!_ came stifled against his mouth.

He finally opened his eyes and whispered her name, and still sobbing, she drew him into her lap.

_Orihime, Orihime, Orihime._

Her fingers moved blindly through his hair, and she was shaking so hard she was afraid she must be hurting him, but she couldn't bring herself to let him go.

_Orihime, stop crying, please._

She leaned down kissed him again, for good measure, and he tasted like blood and life.

* * *

_Don't die on me_, she whispered later, hiding the words in the curve of his neck. _Don't. Please._

He bent his head and pressed his lips behind her ear, trying to calm the frenetic pounding of her heart. _You would have died yourself if I hadn't stepped in._

_But what if I lived and didn't have you?_

He tilted her chin up with one long finger, and then spared her a smile. _You brought me back, didn't you?_

She blinked at him in wonder, and then suddenly realised that 'lonely' and 'useless' could just be things in the past.

* * *

It was not the first time he had nearly died for her, and it would not be the last. 

She wept uncontrollably every time, the words to drag him back to her coming sharp and broken against his skin, but now even through the tears there was an unmistakable determination in her eyes.

They were a team, and she would be damned if she let anyone stand in the way of that.

_I should have seen it before, the way we fit together that first time in the Soul Society, when we were trying to save Kuchiki-san. Being with him felt so natural that it was almost like being with Tatsuki-chan, except it wasn't like Tatsuki at all._

But she hadn't seen it, and now she had to fight and hang on by her fingernails for the chance to make up for all the time she'd lost.

* * *

He didn't make it easy. He refused all further advances, and while there was always a perfectly sound reasoning -- _we're hurt, we're exhausted, we have to take what little chances for sleep we can, we're not alone_ -- she knew there was something beyond mere practicality or being gentlemanly to it. No one could be practical or a gentleman when their eyes grew _that_ dark, after all. 

Finally, shy and hesitating, she asked what the real problem was, and was startled when he only smirked.

_I want to take my time with you, Orihime_, he whispered, breath hot against her ear. _And I want to find somewhere so private that we don't have to worry about how many noises I coax out of you._

_Oh_. Her voice squeaked a bit, then steadied as he took her flailing hands in his. _Oh. I suppose we'll have to work very hard to make sure the war is over soon, then._

She took his kiss as a _yes_.

* * *

The war was not over soon. 

Grim numbers bounced through his head, logical statistics on just how much of a chance they had to survive together till its end (if there ever was an end at all). Then he looked at her, and promptly shoved all logic aside.

She'd always had a way of doing that to him.

They continued to stand, back to back and side by side and always always close enough to touch.

Always together.

_At least if we never see the end of this war_, he mused, _I can't think of any other way I'd rather die_.

But her hand in his made him ache to stay alive for just a while longer.

* * *

And he did, _they_ did, and finally the war's finale crept up on them as subtly as a snake in the grass, and just as venomous. 

_How can we say that we won_, she asked in a whisper, folded into his arms, _when we lost so much?_

And he heard what she left unsaid: _How do we cope with those losses, now that there's nothing else to focus on?_

He splayed long fingers across the small of her back, buried beneath a pile of loose hair, and drew her even closer to him.

_I'm still here, Orihime._

And for the first time in months, maybe for the first time since the beginning of the war, she threw her arms around him with a wild abandon and _laughed_.


End file.
